Directional network discovery performance

Abstract

Directional networks provide significant promise for future high-bandwidth communications architectures. There is an increasing need for capacity to support multi-media and other bandwidth-intensive applications while spectrum availability is decreasing. Directional networks allow for high capacity communications by focusing the energy between transmitter and receiver and providing greater frequency reuse. These networks can either be radio frequency (RF) or optical (free-space optical communications). The engineering cost of this improved capability is increased complexity of network formation and control in mobile network applications. In a traditional wireless network, neighbors can be detected through their omnidirectional antennas as long as they are in range. In directional networks, we contend with the “deafness” problem in that the other nodes are involved in beam-to-beam directional communications and cannot “hear” the new node as it attempts to enter a network. The problem of how to enable new nodes to enter or establish a network is called directional network discovery. There has been research conducted on how this can be efficiently implemented with various antenna and protocol innovations. In this paper, we focus on the performance of mobile network discovery techniques and the security of the discovery process.